In Which I Maybe Eat at the Uyghur Restaurant

Just now, as I was putting water on to boil, I peered out the kitchen window to make sure the Uyghur restaurant was still there.

Yep, yep, yep, red Chinese lanterns hanging beside the doorway, tangled gold knots of Uyghur script flowing across the top of the building. So it's still there, then.

I've been checking about every 10 minutes, every time I get a drink or a snack or just randomly wander around my apartment. It's just across the sidewalk and I can look down on it from my living room and kitchen, and from my bathroom if I really bend my neck.

I would like to eat dinner at this restaurant. I'd wanted to eat breakfast there, but chickened out. Then I summoned my resolve for lunch, but chickened out again. Now it's dinner time. I haven't yet figured out my rice cooker, I'm tired of eating oranges, I very much would love a bowl of noodles.

Thanks to my Berlitz dictionary and Chinese in Plain English, I've composed what I believe is the appropriate request: I want bowl noodles. With vegetables. Please. I know this will cost 10 yuan, about $1.50, and I know the word for 10, so I'll understand at least that when the man at the cash register speaks to me. I hope. Maybe? No telling whether he'll understand me.

Maybe I should write it on my hand?

Anyway, I just checked again. The restaurant is still there. Did I mention it's covered with small white tiles? Regardless, it's there, is the point.

Yep, there it is, the restaurant where I'd like to eat. Yep, yep, yep.

You know, breakfast is only 2 yuan, a much better deal, so if I waited...